Can a Chiropractor Help with Hip Pain?

Chiropractic Treatment of Hip Pain

The hip is often referred to as the “second back.” That’s because the two can be hard to distinguish between. Many problems arising in the back will cause pain in the hip area. Vice versa, a hip problem can be misjudged to be a back problem. To add further confusion a hip problem may show up as pain in the groin.

Is it my hip or my back? It All Starts with a Proper Diagnosis

First identify where the hip is and how it’s made. Stand up. Let your arms hang down at your sides. Where your wrist is that is approximately the level of the hip joint. The hip joint is the hinge between your pelvis and the lower extremity. It is made up of a ball end of the large lower leg bone called the femur. The ball fits snugly into a socket (acetabulum) in your pelvic bone. On most people there is a bony structure that sticks out from the side of the body that you can feel when you lift your leg up and down while standing.

People often mistake another area as the hip. If you backwards and up from the hip you will find another bony structure called the sacroiliac joint. This is a large joint in the rear of the pelvis where your tailbone and pelvis meet. More people than not come into the office and say “doc my hip is killin me” and then grab their sacroiliac region to show me.

Hip pain is in the Hip and also the Groin and also sometimes in the Back

The hip is a large joint. When it malfunctions, it can radiate pain in the area of the hip on the side of your lower body. Confusingly, it can also radiate to the groin. This makes sense though because the groin area is the front of the hip. Where it gets confusing is a hip problem can cause pain in the low back. This occurs due to low back muscles working overtime trying to make up for abnormal walking patterns when a hip is in trouble.

Your chiropractor will ask you to move in certain positions and they will push and pull and work your back, sacroiliac and hip to see what the main problem is.

Chiropractic Helps Hip Pain

There are several ways chiropractic care can help a painful hip. Chiropractic joint adjustments restore normal function to stuck joints. This includes the hip. Hip joints can become misaligned due to trauma, but also chronic postural stress at work or home, muscle imbalances in the pelvis and more. The pain is usually from inflammation in the joint. Your chiropractor will assess the motion of your hip and may perform a maneuver that pulls on the leg and opens up the joint. Sometimes you will hear and feel a pop. Sometimes you will just feel a release of tension.

If your hip pain has been around a long time or if it is from trauma, physiotherapy modalities of heat, electrical stimulation or low level light therapy like cold laser may be used. The goal is to relieve excess inflammation that may have built up over time. [LINK INFLAMMATION]

One of the most important treatments for hip pain are exercises. Specific exercises may be given to balance the muscles affecting your hip so the pain does not return.